At risk of a barrage of down votes....(and at risk of this topic being already well-defined and its just me that doesn't know)

Why not charge a reduced market ad fee for pins that you ended up trading instead of selling? I suspect that the argument against this suggestion is: "you got rid of your pin and received equitable value in return thanks to pinside...pay the damn fee, cheapskate. ". That point is pretty tough to argue, but here it goes anyway...

- first off, it would not surprise me if a fair number of those that ended up trading don't end up paying any fee because they feel that their game 'did not sell'. (it was traded). If there was a trade fee, this would be black and white and Pinside would likely collect greater qty of fees.
- sometimes (because we want what we want) you know your trade is a bad deal: your pin is undervalued, his pin is overpriced, there's considerable cash leaving your pocket, you're driving 10hrs....then you get hit with the full sales fee from pinside. in principle, I suspect pinsiders would feel better about paying a trade fee.
- two pinsiders each with current ads simply trade their machines. No (or little money) changes hands. Seems that it would be reasonable for each of them to pay a trade fee. Paying two sell fees almost seems like double-dipping on a single transaction (or maybe both of them decide to not pay anything per my first bullet point).

So how about trade fee option that's 50-60% of the sell fee?

Anyway...let me know what I'm getting wrong.

For the record: every time I've traded from a posted ad, I paid my sell fee. So dont be too hard on me!

Unquestionably, Pinside is an incredibly valuable resource for the hobby, and I don’t mean for my suggestion of a reduced fee for trades to ultimately lower pinside’s cash flow. Perhaps I’m too pessimistic, but I suspect the majority of ads that end up as trades get shown as ‘did not sell’ and no fee is paid.

I bet there is some % for a reduced fee that…once black and white…would actually increase cash flow. Especially if that % was 100% and the fee was explicitly stated to be for whether your games sells or was traded…but maybe if that % was 50% it would still increase pinside’s cash flow?